Hey there! Welcome to Brainly! I'm happy to help!
In equations, letters like x or y are called variables. They represent a number that we do not know yet, or they can almost be seen as a question mark in an equation. For example, 1+?=2. We know that this ? represents the number 1, and the same would go if you put a variable in there. If you have 1+x=2, you can figure out that x=1!
Our equation is 5x=110. When you see a number next to a variable, that number is called the coefficient. It is a number that multiplies a variable. So, our coefficient is 5. This means that five is multiplied by x to equal 110.
5·x=110
What if we don't know off the top of our heads what we multiply 5 by to get to 110? It was easy with 1+1=2, but this is trickier. Here's how to figure it out.
We want to get the x all by itself on one side of the equation. Then, we will see what x equals.
To do this, we use inverse operations. I will show you below with our 1+x=2 example.
1+x=2
We have a positive one plus an x equals two. We could visualize this like this.
+1+x=2
What we want to do is move the 1 to the other side of the equation so that x is by itself. So, what's the opposite of adding? Subtracting!
However, we don't just subtract the 1 from the left side, but we do it from the right side! You have to do the inverse operation on both sides to find the answer.
So, let's subtract 1 from both sides.
+1+x-1=2-1
x=1
We see that x equals 1, and if we plug this into the equation 1+x=2, we see that it is correct.
Now, with our problem, we need to divide, because that is the opposite of multiplication. We need to divide both sides by 5 to isolate the x. Let's do it!
5x÷5=110÷5
x=22
We see that 5×22 is equal to 110, so this is correct! Now you can solve for variables in equations!
Have a wonderful day!
